


Armistice

by orphan_account



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, Family, Gen, post-TFA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-04 23:14:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6679330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A redeemed Kylo Ren adjusts to his life in the Resistance while kept at arm's length from Rey and Finn's growing family until chance at last takes him into its favor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Armistice

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't beta and this is for bahsatan on tumblr

Stormtroopers were well-trained in hand to hand combat; FN-2187 now “Finn” occupied the records as having received top marks in close-quarters fighting. Kylo Ren never knew that. Even back when that might have been relevant Ren would have been no more interested in dredging up the records for a single stormtrooper than he would ask a single neuron its first name. The very idea was simply that absurd. You did not humanize the cannon fodder or find yourself deigned to think of them as people. They were as much individuals as a cog was separated from a larger machine. To be separated from the machine was to be rendered useless. No, Ren discovered Finn’s honed talents for direct conflict when the ex-trooper cracks his elbow against Ren’s jaw. Even when his head still rang allowed from the impact after his head bounced like rubber against the wall, Ren already knew he sort of deserved that.

Tempers flared unexpectedly as wildfire when Rey blurted out the fact that she was pregnant. Why this lead to Finn coldcocking Ren was not out of some misdirected machismo or some other more intimate sort of blame. There was never any doubt who the father was – of course it was Finn. That bridge had been well and cleared months into Ren’s prodigal son routine. Well after Rey sought Luke Skywalker out; when she, the abandoned scavenger girl, had been taken under his lonely wing had Ren come limping back into the picture. Where that relationship was concerned he had already gone through several iterations of what to consider her. From enemy to asset eventually to the tenuous definition of family —barring the occasional with the occasional backslide. Rey was Ren’s family, and that Ren had no interest in woman (or really anyone these days) were all factors that contributed to his never impinging on the transparently blossoming affection between her and Finn. It was never on the table not with that kind of bad blood – blood they happened to share in all but the name. No, Finn threw that sucker punch because Ren had the audacity to open his mouth.

“I— I mean, how…” Finn had stammered as he straddled joy and shock in the wake of Rey’s revelation when it came bursting out during a closed mission brief between themselves, Leia and a still reluctant Kylo Ren. She had been coming back from training increasingly pallid and markedly moodier. No one wanted to say it, but really Finn was the last to know.

“You’re surprised?” Ren had chimed in even knowing full well that his input was not welcomed. Before Finn could come to his own defense or anyone else could intervene, he continued. “The cocktail of chemical augmentations you were inoculated with during conditioning over the course of the program once you hit the age threshold for puberty just decreased sex drive.

“No one wants deviating loyalties or the possibility of sexual assault with all those nasty consequences within the ranks so of course they had safeguards. What?”

  
Ren had huffed a humorless laugh in the lull when all eyes had trained on him. It could be parsed from Finn’s shocked expression that he had no idea the extent of the dehumanizing conditioning going on topside in the stormtrooper program.

“You honestly think anyone in their right mind holding the reigns would let the expendables take a peak under the hood? Sorry, but you might have been neutered but on a biological level you were still firing on all cylinders. If you had a hard time getting it up that was probably just residual-“

Ren chocked down the syllable against a torrent of pain that seared deep in the skull where it drilled up through his jaw when Finn landed that hit. Even in retrospect, Ren had continually denied any maliciousness to what he said. A play for sympathy alluded him even when he had meant to educate rather than demean. No one had the patience for it, though. He had sealed his fate in that careless moment. Rey had already made up her mind right then and there. Even if Kylo Ren had proved himself a useful ally and even as she had begun to accept him as family her decision was now set in stone: He would never come near her children. That might have even been in question before she made the announcement, but Ren cemented his fate in that thoughtless moment.

Ren was off world when Senna was born, and cognizant of the fact his physically presence was not required when Pella was born almost two years later. On both occasions he heard the news had trickled down the party line months after the fact when his mother had found the time to speak to him. On both occasions he didn’t take it too personally. Leia sympathized with her son and always would, but she respected Rey and loved her just as much. From one mother to another it was easier to respect set boundaries than plead the case of a volatile former apprentice of the Dark side just because the latter had guilt intermingled with some itch to vicariously relive their lost childhood. The day Ren was formally introduced to the children of Rey and Finn Skywalker was an event orchestrated outside the control of both girls’ parents. Let alone his own.

It had been a routine visit planetside; Ren was on D’Qar to brief for a mission deep into wild space to root out remnants of the First Order left to fester like an old wound. Leia was hyper aware of the possibility of the Order’s resurgence from her own experiences with the old Empire. Even when Palpatine died – even when Snoke died the fighting hadn’t stopped. Just because he and Rey had cut the head off the snake did not denote the body itself died quietly. Ren was in the process of updating the holographic display glowing above the plinth in pride of place of the bunker with the latest information on the planet suspect of harboring Order sympathizes when something crashed against his leg. The living weight of a six year old girl with the crushing intensity of a starved Dagobah python wrapped around his leg. Senna had slipped away from her parents long enough to explore.

“Hi!” Senna piped up. Hazel eyes punctured Ren from behind a curtain of coily hair almost as dark as his own.

“Hello, Sen.”

Ren knew by osmosis that Senna preferred to go by Sen just as her three year old sister favored the diminutive name of Pel. A very monosyllabic family, them. Ren commented during one of the rare visits with his mother before it earned him a half-hearted slap across his arm. They both laughed then, despite themselves.

“I’m here to illiterate you!” Sen said with a toothy grin the harder she squeezed around the offended limp. Ren knew she meant obliterate but was charmed by her young tendency towards malapropism all the same. Obviously, he had been caught in the crossfire of some game meant to distract them away from her parents’ busy schedules.

“Oh, really?” Ren replied despite the strangled circulation that prickled in his toes the harder his little niece squeezed. Technically a second cousin but he applied the term towards the girl anyway.

Cautious and then aware of his audience, Ren looked up to see the figures of both mother and father at the mouth of the stone slope where bunker opened to the airstrip. D’Qar was a sweltering planet dotted by weeks of scarce heart but right then and there the chill of winter freezes the blood in his veins when his eyes locked with Finn and Rey’s. Behind Finn, Ren could see a shy three year old Pella clinging to her father’s pants leg. Too small and too nervous to approach strangers. All four of them stood tense. Immobilized by their respective dread and justified outrage – until Sen laughed and squeezed harder.

“Hiya, Uncle Ren.” She said. Hello, Ren said without thinking it through. Just like that seven years of animosity melted away. Hatred and Rey's almost hardwired drive to shelter her children away from him buckled against that one gesture.

  
Ren would not see the girls again for another several months. Circumstance and convenience brought them together when the very mission that had been their introduction required further investigation. The only fuel depot within lightyears a hop skip and a jump from where his cousin had taken up some semi-permanent residency. Finn and Rey had settled on a small terraformed moon that orbited a major trade planet on the farthest reaches of the Outer Rim. The planet itself hosted beachside property that was quite the commodity for a young family. It had come as shock initially that Rey had planet roots somewhere with so much sand, but both he and Finn had come to realize that in the years since Rey had transplanted scared positive memories of her tumultuous childhood with sandy banks. Some positive outlook derived from their new home. Just add water. Ren had spent a night in their home being entertained by the wild imaginings of two small children eager to unload their every thought on the first ear they could twist.

  
Ren awoke that morning to two pairs of hazel eyes that crested over the pull out mattress in the guest room. Rey it had seemed retracted his standing sentence since last night that barred him from any meaningful interaction with the girls. Mom said we could go down to the shore, Senna said. Ren could almost hear the excitement as it rattled around Pella’s head when she nodded in vigorous confirmation.

“Alright, let’s go.” He said.

Both girls were young blessed with boundless energy and the will to release it in enthusiastic bursts. The moment Ren had opened the swinging back door that lead out to a wooden patio overlooking the sandy hills that crested above the distant ocean – they were off. Two sets of tawny legs danced under the hem of matching pale yellow sundresses thrown over swim clothes as the girls raced down the sun bleached wood walkway for the shore. Ren kept a light jog to stay just behind them while maintained the illusion of their superior speed. That all changed when reached the dunes.

Senna cleared the first bush of beach grass with an excited cry before Pella followed. Two bodies tumbled down the rolling hills, and Ren broke into a sprint in hot pursuit. His feet slid down the loose sand. Wind wiped through the mess of black hair he kept in a loose braids at the temples. At the base of the steepest hill, Senna whooped with delight. Ren howled back in kind with similar delight. Their cheers thrown out into the wild morning breeze. All three of them went running for the shoreline. Senna at the fore and legs primed to springboard in the breakers; a shyer Pella hanging back to wait to see if the sea wouldn’t swallow up her elder sister before braving the water. Ren – the Kylo Ren bringing up the rear with a smile so wide it could split his head open all the while he crowed and laughed the years away with pure bliss at the sight that unfolded before him.

  
All of them dove into the shallow waters of the early morning’s low tide. Senna jumped above the breakers before Ren scooped her up into his arms to throw her farther into the water. Pella clambered onto his back avoid the chill and her own fear of water she could not see the bottom of. Senna swam like a fish back to Ren to demand to be thrown back him. He of course obliged and encouraged Pella to take the eventual plunge. Her dark hair matted to her brow when she broke the surface to sputter and dog paddle her way back to Ren.

“Cannonball!”

Pella cried out in a rare moment of articulated delight as she jumped from Ren’s shoulders into the water; Ren clapped as Senna jeered. After nearly an hour of the trio jumping around the water Senna of course necessitated for the same offer to use his shoulders as a platform her sister once she was back in the water. Ren of course indulged her even if she was big enough to put some strain on his already tired shoulders. They all tackled each other, paddled through the water, danced together on the shore as they kicked up sand and salt water until the sun was at its highest in the afternoon. When then they slept under a red candy-striped umbrella until three demanding appetites carried them back towards the house on the shore.

  
This entire time, Finn and Rey watched from the kitchen window. First nursing cups of caf before they moved to glasses of sweetened tea when the hours neared noon. Both of them finally content. Both of them eased into this idea of a large, happy family that went against the grain of so many years of accumulated heartache. They were all of them at peace. Ren no longer in doubt as to where he belonged.


End file.
